Halloween Is For Lovers (17 page)

Morton had just woken up from the most spectacular dream. In it he was wearing a white two-button sport coat, jeans and boating shoes with no socks. He was sober and healthy and ... He wasn't sure about this last part. It seemed he was happy or not sad or something. There was a woman in the dream that wasn't his wife and he got the feeling they were more than friends.

Up on his feet, he was a little more tipsy than usual. The pills were amplifying the schnapps and the schnapps was causing the pills to rapidly metabolize. His head was a washy swirl of soft gray. He looked around. He couldn't believe he was somewhat conscious in a graveyard. The night with Hugh was somehow and somewhat real, the white sport coat was the dream.

No, I imagined the ghost.

He stumbled over to Hugh's gravestone. "I made it all up. What are these docs putting in these pills?" But then he noticed the beer bottle cap Hugh had left on top of the stone. Hamm's, slightly bent. They hadn't made Hamm's in bottles in decades. The last time he had Hamm's in a bottle was ...

His heart momentarily stopped. His blood vibrated with electricity and shocked him sober.

Hugh had the double French doors open a crack when a woman behind him came out of the ladies’ room and screamed. He turned and assured her, "I'm not going to hurt anybody."

Too late, the woman had unholstered her pepper spray from her clutch and unloaded the entire contents into Hugh's face.

He coughed and wheezed as he stumbled backward through the French doors and into the ballroom. The guests gasped. He rubbed his eyes and stumbled to the center of the room like an injured animal. He spastically looked up with blood red eyes and let out a terrible howl. The ladies shrieked in horror and the men stumbled over themselves to escape to the walls.

"It's hideous. What is it?" Gilda gasped.

A few of Steve's waterskiing buddies got up the courage to surround Hugh and protect the wedding party. They used chairs, lion-tamer style, and kept Hugh jostled between them.

Hugh looked at Lily and screamed, "I love you!"

Lily took some deep breaths and leaned into Steve to ask, "Honey, how common are mass hallucinations?"

Steve had a strange reaction to Hugh. He wasn't afraid. He even seemed to be a little excited. "That's no hallucination. That thing is real."

Lily shook her head with a fake laugh. "If this is someone’s idea of a prank, I'm not laughing."

Hugh rushed the bridal table and two of the biggest water-skiers grabbed him. Restrained, he cried out to Lily, "I love you, Lily, I can't stop loving you."

Lily gasped. "Stop it! It's horrible. Please make it stop." She buried her head in Steve's chest.

"Don't worry, Lil, I'll protect you." Steve handed Lily to Gilda and the other bridesmaids, who ushered her out of the room.

Hugh moaned, "Lily!" as they twisted him to his knees.

Steve stood over Hugh with a smug grin. "Hey freak-show, you just ruined my rehearsal dinner." He swung with a powerful uppercut to Hugh's right lower jaw. The warm glow of Frederick's grand ballroom faded quickly to black.

Fifteen Babies

Hugh woke up in Steve's secret basement chamber. It was a classy secret chamber, actually classy contemporary. More like an aficionado's wine vault than a torture dungeon. He was chained to a stainless steel chair with black vinyl cushions that had specific places to tie down feet and arms with medical-grade straps. With a few twists of the knobs and pulls at the levers it ratcheted into a table. It was a disturbing piece of furniture. If Hugh had crazy monster ghost powers like he had thought he was going to have, he could have broken free from it easily. He would have busted free and used the chains as a weapon, thrashing and growling his way back to Lily. Gathering her in his arms, he would climb Frederick's steeple and roar at the circling planes, declaring to all the world in his zombie howl that she was his and they were in love.

The only thing strange in Steve's secret chamber besides Hugh chained to a torture chair was a row of pristine bassinets painted new-baby white. Steve walked out of the shadows, brushing his hand along their lace canopies. "My father had these made specially by the finest twelve-year-old carpenters in all of Honduras."

Steve took an armless chair and swung it around to face Hugh. He sat in it backwards, his legs spread, his elbows up on the backrest. "So who or what the hell are you?"

Hugh mumbled through his slumped head, "I'm Lily's old fiancé."

"But you died."

Hugh's chin was tucked into his chest, and his neck was a limp noodle. "I came back for her."

Steve beamed and scraped the chair in a little closer. "You're a ghost, a spirit, the walking dead, a resurrected body." He reached out and touched Hugh's shoulder. "Holy crap." He smiled. "The universe is trying to communicate something to me. What message do you have, celestial spirit walker?"

"I love Lily." Some residual green swamp water leaked from Hugh's mouth. He tried to wipe it off, but the chains restricted his hands to his lap.

Steve popped up out of the chair and paced excitedly. He looked at the stairs leading out of the basement and whispered to himself with a grin, "The cosmos are jealous of the vessel I have chosen for my prodigy. They sent a creature to steal her away. Everything is proceeding exactly as I have planned." He tented his fingers in front of his face.

"What?" Hugh was gaining back his strength and swung his head up and back to look at Steve.

Steve turned to him. "Everything is proceeding exactly as I have—"

"I heard you. Let me go, I don't have much time."

"Ha. You'd like that, wouldn't you. Then you could spoil my plans."

"Plans?"

"Plans have been made, demon, plans have been made. I should have expected unearthly forces would align against me."

"What plans?"

Steve raised an eyebrow and nodded before remounting the chair in front of Hugh. "After the wedding I'll seal off the grounds of Frederick and fill the moat. The perimeter of Frederick's wall will be patrolled by south Texas cattle dogs, The most vicious of the canine breed. They'll attack you from behind before you even know they're there. Dogs, yes, lots of circling, hungry dogs." Steve's mind wandered for a moment, then he snapped back. "Then, in complete isolation, here in Frederick's caverns, Lily will produce fifteen children for me and I will raise them up to carry forth my message to the world."

"You're crazy. Does Lily know about this? Let me go, I need to see Lily."

"Never."

Hugh rocked his head from one shoulder to the other. "If you don't let me go I will ... suck out your soul."

Steve thought for a moment. "If you could really do that, you would have already. Ha, gotcha." He wagged his finger at Hugh. "You're devious. You see, Hugh, yes I know your name, Lily has awoken me many a night with sobs of your name. But you see, not long ago I was being pulled by a helicopter across the water at one hundred seventy-three miles per hour. My bare feet were skimming across a surface that would drown mere mortals. It was then I realized something." His eyes floated to the ceiling. "I realized there was no God, and if there was no God, then by logical definition and quantification I came to the conclusion that I, Steve Moore, M.D., must be God."

Hugh shook his head. "What? That doesn't even begin to make sense. You realized there was no God, therefore you were God. What happened to the there is no God idea?"

"I realized I was God. Duh." Steve shook his head. "I always knew that simpleminded folk wouldn't be able to grasp the reality of what I was saying. That's why I need the kids." He kicked his voice up to an evangelical tone. "And they will know him thanks in part to the gentle sweetness of his childs, the fifteen radiant angels."

"Childs? That's not a word," Hugh spat out, exasperated. "But that's beside the point, this is ridiculous. She can't have fifteen babies, that's impossible, it's biologically not possible."

Steve's eyes lit up. "Fifteen golden warriors. Two batches of sextuplets followed by a final divine batch of triplets." He walked over to a sideboard and reverently pulled out a drawer full of syringes and vials of fertility drugs. "You see, Hugh, the universe has given me the tools and the power to control everything." He slid the drawer closed and looked at his hands in amazement. He walked over to Hugh. "Is the chair comfortable?"

Hugh moaned and fought the chains.

"It's not designed for sitting, it's designed for birthing babies. I added the restraints in case Lily isn't ... What's the word I'm looking for ... cooperative."

Hugh fought with all his might against the chains. "You're crazy. Not just crazy, you're like, crazy-crazy. Like not funny crazy. Let me go."

Steve put his hands on his hips and pumped out his chest. "The first six, all boys. The second six, all girls. The final three?" He broke from his pose. "We'll see. I'm kind of keeping my options open in case I need to backfill some positions in my righteous army of destiny." He raised his voice to thunder, "Thus spoke the rising god of eternal bliss and awesomeness."

"You're insane, you realize that, don't you? The stuff coming out of your mouth doesn't make sense. It's like verbal upchuck."

"Ha. There's not just verbs coming out of my mouth, demon. There's nouns and adjectives too. I am God. If I wasn't, then why would the evil forces of the netherworld send you to try and destroy my wedding, steal my vessel, twart my plans?"

"Thwart your plans?"

"Yeah, there's lots of different ways to pronounce words, you know." Steve hefted a large stack of paper. "I've already started writing my holy book. The working title is
Steve, Because I Said So
." He flipped to a page and started reading, "Book one, chapter one, verse one. And lo, the masses listened to static until a gloriously supreme being tuned in the truth and sang his righteous song. And the ruler almighty, the one and only supreme being, was called Steve." He put the pages down. "I haven't had a lot of time to work on this. I'll have more time to write once Lily is ripe with my golden fruits." Steve pranced across the room, excited. "I almost forgot." He unzipped a garment bag, revealing a hideous prairie dress sewn out of lilac gingham. It was designed in a way to make the wearer appear thirty pounds heavier. "Lily will incubate and nourish my gifts to the universe wearing this." He stroked the coarse fabric and set it aside. Picking up a shoe box, he propped open the lid and revealed a pair of cheap pink-and-blue mules. The toe of the shoe said “Let's play tennis” but the lack of backs said “Let's sit on the couch and snack.” "These are the shoes." Steve put his hand on his hip, in a fay fluster.
"I want her to wear a hat, but I've been so busy I haven't found the right one."

"You're insane."

Steve tossed his head back with a smile. "There's a fine line between insane and insanely brilliant ... insanely awesome ... insanely divine." He put down the shoe box and walked down the row of bassinets, gently rocking them, imagining the babies inside. "Andrew, he'll be the one who always smiles. Emily will be the tomboy, tall and strong. William and Klaus." He stood and rocked two bassinets. "They won't get along as children, but after I build them into mighty broadcasters of my truth they'll put their differences aside and be best buds."

"This is crazy. Your head is stuck in crazy-town." Hugh continued to squirm against the restraints.

"Crazy? Really? Is it crazy for a mortal god to want a family? Huh? A family of fifteen golden combatants, glorious in their earthen form. Whom, at a predetermined time, will gather up in the chrysalis and launch toward the promised land of infinite bliss and wisdom." Steve was daydreaming, his head in the clouds again. He slowly paced the cellar with a grin on his face.

Hugh shook his head the best he could. "Wait ... Chrysalis? Launch? Is there going to be some kind of spaceship—"

Outraged, Steve snapped, "Who told you?!" He composed himself and nervously scratched his head. "Maybe that's why they sent you, to disable the ark." He shook his head and calmed down. "No, that's impossible, it's protected by two electric fences with a field of razor wire between them." He took a step back to think. "But there are no dogs, note to self, third perimeter fence to contain a ring of cattle dogs." His attention turned back to Hugh. "Besides, you'd have a hard time destroying what you can't see. Ha! That's right, I built it with my mind ... out of invisible solar fibers and neutrino particles. Plenty of room for me and my fifteen angelic warriors."

"What about Lily?"

"Ah yes, Lily." Steve paced with his fingers tented. "At first I looked into having myself cloned, but the technology is still a few years off. Sadly, the doctors working in that field aren't as brilliant as I am. Besides, Lily's attractive albeit inferior genes will add a little hybrid vigor, you know, a little zest to the mix." Steve walked over and rested his hand on the stack of paper that would one day be his holy book. With a bowed head he recited, "Only those begot of Steve, irregardless of their attractiveness, may pass into the land of infinite bliss and wisdom." He turned and looked at Hugh. "Lily is just a vessel, a basket. Wrapping paper, really. Required to incubate my creations into life but, postpartum ..." He raised his shoulders. "What can I say? Who saves the wrapping paper?"